16 Aug 2014



Ah Bonjour!

Yesterday left Holland for a journey to Normandy in France. Before leaving I had contacted Lien, a girl I wrote about 12 months ago when I found her with her leg bandaged up in the hostel in Hanoi where I was staying.

Lien had been in a scooter accident and had severe lacerations on her leg including an infected open wound on her foot. The day I met her I had been inside a Vietnamese hospital and had quickly come to the conclusion that if you ended up in there it would be very probable that you would end up with more issues then before. Lien had to go to the hospital every few days to get her foot seen to. I offered to treat her foot instead, using my standard medicine kit. I managed to get rid of the infection in about four days. Due to a misunderstanding I had missed saying good bye to her when she left. Anyway- She had invited me to visit her in Ghent (Belgium) and also invited her parents, who live about 100 km away, to meet me. Needles to say that they were very appreciative that I assisted their daughter with her recovery. Unfortunately I forgot to take some pictures as all had been packed away as I had battled several heavy rain storms during the morning ,so a face book pic has to do.

At 10 pm I arrived at my destination at my friend Jerome and Daniela's place, 25 km past Caen. The Flags were out and diner ready.

Today we were invited to a wedding party without a wedding. A couple who live nearby wanted to make a public statement to their friends that they were now officially living together (again) as a couple- they had been married before.

Outside in the garden a party tent had been erected and lunch/diner served mid afternoon. Pig on the spit followed by a range of cheeses, cakes and coffee.

An interesting observation was that if a person arrives they go past every person, shake the men’s hand and give the wife to "air kisses". There were about 30 people present, at times a new person arrived and walked around the long table introducing him or herself. One is not introduced by the host as they do in Australia; you just go around and introduce yourself. (I think the same as in Holland)

I don’t speak French and ************e spoke English, so I had a problem. However- After many glasses of wine my French was getting better and many others tried their best English. This was not the time to utter a lot of swearwords and saying “Excuse the French” either . Anyway it was a very pleasant experience, I think to only one who would disagree would have been the pig before his soul was sent flying.

Here are some pics